Chapter 12
KAYLA
I send them back to hell.
My heart skitters at his taunting voice. And before I can ask more, he turns toward his bag and kneels, removing a bottle of water and a large towel. He pours some onto the cotton and approaches me, gently wiping my hands, my face, until I’m clean.
“Now be a good girl and take off your clothes. We need to get out of here.”
Heat sprouts through me at the way he said that. I know it was dirtier in my head than he meant to make it sound. Or maybe he meant it exactly how I took it.
His thumb reaches for my lips, and he brushes them with the softest touch not meant for a man like this.
“You have a pretty mouth, Kayla Jenkins,” he whispers gruffly. “I hope you think better of it before you kiss him.”
“Wh-what?” My breath hitches. “Ki-kiss who?”
“That fucking bodyguard who wants inside you.” He grunts like the idea pains him. “But you wouldn’t let him do that, would you?” He groans, popping my mouth open with his thumb, his breathing storming out of him. “You wouldn’t let him have what I want. What belongs to me.”
“You want me?” I ask softly, still so unused to hearing something like that from a man, it’s as though I need the constant reassurance.
He chuckles, and if it had a color, it’d be black. “Your flesh, your insatiable appetite, your deepest, darkest desires… I want it all, baby bird.”
“Believe me,” I mutter. “If you knew me, knew the things I think about, you’d never say that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I want to know everything about you.
Everything you think about. And you will tell me.
Because you and I, we’re the same. I can feel the rage inside you, and I want to consume it.
I want to make you scream until there’s nothing left but your beating heart and the naked truths seeping through your soul.
Do you want that, Kayla? Do you want to scream with me? ”
My chest rises and falls with chaotic breaths, tears weighing heavy within my eyes.
“Yes.” I nod with a tremble. “I’ve never wanted something more.”
He inhales and holds it in his chest before he sets it free. “Good.” He traces my lips once more. “Go on now. Change. We need to go, even though I don’t want to.”
I realize Chris is probably going to be following me to my parents’ tomorrow, and A won’t be happy.
“Don’t do anything stupid tomorrow.” I quirk a brow.
“Like what?”
He cups my cheek, and every single inch of me grows languid. I fall into his touch like he’s the apple to my Eve.
My eyes fall to a close, and I’m consumed in this tranquil feeling, never wanting it to end. “He’s gonna go to my parents’ tomorrow, and I’m afraid you’re gonna lose your shit.”
He chuckles. “How do you already know me so well?”
“Intuition.” A slow-growing smile falls to my lips as I look back at him.
“So he gets to meet your parents and I don't?”
“Well, it'll be a little hard for me to introduce you. You know, with that mask and all. Mommy would definitely not approve.”
He growls in frustration. “I don't like him, Kayla. And do you know what I do with people I don't like?”
I scoff. “Let me guess? You kill them.”
He chuckles. “Right again, my little wolf.” He runs the back of his hand down my face. “I’ve always considered myself an ethical kind of murderer. Now? Imagining him doing the things I know he wants to do to you? Knowing there’s some part of you that wants him too? Not so much.”
“What would you do if he kissed me?” I play with danger, wanting it. “If he touched me…”
“Touched you where? Here?” He brushes a finger between my thighs, and I let out a moan, wanting him to reach inside and touch my throbbing clit.
“Yes…” I gasp as he pushes a finger into me.
“I’d rip out his heart and make him watch as I burned it, right before he got a taste of the flames too.”
My eyes widen.
His laughter reverberates in every part of my being. “Does that scare you? Do you see me now? The real me?”
I shake my head. “You don’t scare me. You make me feel a little bit safer, knowing you’re there lurking in the shadows, watching me. Wanting me…”
He hisses, grabbing a fistful of my hair. “What did I tell you about tempting the devil? Do you like to play with fire? Do you like the burn? Do you crave it?”
I nod, shame filling my cheeks.
“I do too,” he confesses. “One day you’ll tell me everything you want. Everything you need. And I’ll be the one to give it to you, even when that’s all I’ll ever have to offer someone like you.”
“Like me?”
He nods once. “We may be the same, but we’re more different than you’d imagine. You have a heart, and mine? Well, let’s just say I never truly had one to begin with.”
I place my palm against the center of his chest, feeling the weight of his pummeling heartbeats. “I don’t believe that. Maybe you do. Maybe that’s all you see, but I see more. There’s more inside you. Maybe you’re the one afraid of it, but I’m not.”
“If only my mother saw it too,” he whispers.
The back of my throat stings. “Your mother? Did she hurt you?”
I ache for him then, hearing that pain in his voice, letting a fragment of his true self slip away.
“Never mind her. She’s not worthy enough to be spoken about between us. Now, please change before I do something we both regret.”
“Maybe you’d regret it, but not me.”
My gut recoils as I imagine how disgusted he’d be if he saw my body. Saw the cuts that no longer bleed, the scars that no longer throb.
“I’d never regret you.” He says that as though it’s as true as the sky is blue.
But that’s not the truth, now, is it? He can’t know that, not until he sees it for himself.
I move back, my body trembling inwardly as I clutch the hem of my hoodie and start to take it off, pushing it over my head.
My entire body fills with nerves I can’t shake, my hands quivering.
“What are you doing?” he barks, anger radiating in his tone.
But I continue, hands on my sweats now, rolling them down slowly until I’m able to step out of them. Even as the anxiety settles inside me, I maintain eye contact, knowing he’s looking right back.
“Kayla,” he warns. “Don’t.”
My cotton panties come next, and this part is not even the hardest. I’ve done this before. Taken off my clothes in front of strangers.
The cotton drops to my ankles until it’s forgotten. His fists clamp tight, knuckles white.
“You can’t be doing this.” He forces himself to turn.
“No!” I stamp out. “Look at me, God damn it!”
“Kayla…” The word strangles in his throat.
“Please, I need you to see me. All of me. I need you to know everything.”
It’s as though I’m begging for acceptance. Begging for someone to finally see every inch of me and tell me it’s okay.
It’s then he slowly returns his attention back to me.
I start to remove my tank top, my breasts popping free. And once I let my shirt fall and I turn around, that’s when he grows completely silent.
He growls, more animal than man.
“Who—” He pants. “Who did that to you?”
There’s pain and rage in his words as I let him see me. Marred and cast aside.
“Savages,” I tell him without looking his way.
“The ones who took me and my friends, the ones who tried to make me turn on Elsie when she escaped. But I wouldn’t give her up.
No matter what they did to me.” An ache catches in my throat.
“They thought I was weak. They thought they could break me.” I grin even through the tears.
“But they never realized I was already broken.”
“Tell me their names, and they will never know another sunrise.” He sounds so brutal, like he’d burn the world for me.
Tears bathe my eyes just as he marches forward until he’s there behind me. His body heat radiates in waves.
Before I can wonder what he’ll do next, I gasp as his fingers gently trace one scar, then another, and another. I heave a gasping cry, standing there until he’s outlined every single one.
“This is just skin, Kayla. Beautiful skin. It doesn’t matter to me what it looks like.”
Silently, I cry, not knowing if I even believe him.
Strong hands turn me until I’m tucked against his chest, his arms just a little surer as they safeguard me against my heartbreak.
Pulling back, he cups my face in his palm. “Don’t cry, little wolf. We don’t let them win. We destroy them.”
“Most of them are dead or in prison,” I explain. “But this? This is what I am now.”
“No.” He cinches his grasp. “This is just flesh. Who you are is Kayla, and Kayla is beautiful.”
I fight back the endless river of tears as they storm out until they cloud my vision, over and over, blinding me.
I’m naked before a man I’ve never known, and he’s made me feel like I’m floating.
We stand like that together for long moments in unbending time, as though it’s frozen for us while my heart weeps to see his face.
To touch it. To kiss every inch. To feel his mouth on mine until my soul aches.
But that’s not our reality. He’s a secret keeper, and I’m afraid he’ll never let me know his.
“What now?” I ask, not wanting him to go. Wishing he’d come home with me and hold me until I fall asleep.
But we can’t do that either. Not with Chris around.
“I don’t know.” His arms tighten around me just a little more. “Am I doing it right?” he whispers hoarsely.
“What?” I’m completely unsure of what he’s asking.
“Hugging you. Am I doing it right?”
His voice…it’s so vulnerable, so real and raw.
And achingly beautiful…
I blink faster through the blanket of tears. Has he never been hugged? Never hugged someone in return?
I clasp my arms as tightly as I can around him, wanting him to feel it.
“Never been held better in my life,” I practically sigh.
“You liar.”
I grin and burrow into him some more. “Stop ruining the moment, stalker.”
“What the hell have you done to me, Kayla Jenkins?” he breathes.
I’m not sure. But I think it’s the same thing you’ve done to me.